New Year's Poem

steep rugged cliffs on all sides
draw the eye up
to a sky deep blue in daylight
deep black at night
spangled with brilliant stars
and sometimes moonlight
that invites me out to walk
and makes it easy to blow out lamps
without a flashlight

the music of the creek rushing by
on its way to the sea
draws me forward
into this moment

where the sky is grey
and the music is
the drumming of rain,
traffic on Hawthorne,
and the pounding of radiator pipes

as I sit here among friends
in the middle of a city
far away
I see that it is really close
and that it doesn't require
an 18-hour train ride
to bring me home